Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/289

Rh going as usual straight to the point, "that we can keep Betsy here with us."

"Oh, would you like to!" asked Aunt Frances, fluttering, as though the idea had never occurred to her before that minute. "Would Elizabeth Ann really like to stay?"

"Oh, I'd like to, all right!" said Betsy, looking confidently up into Aunt Abigail's face.

Aunt Abigail spoke now. She cleared her throat twice before she could bring out a word. Then she said, "Why, yes, we'd kind of like to keep her. We've sort of got used to having her round."

That's what she said, but, as you have noticed before on this exciting day, what people said didn't matter as much as what they looked; and as her old lips pronounced these words so quietly the corners of Aunt Abigail's mouth were twitching, and she was swallowing hard. She said, impatiently, to Cousin Ann, "Hand me that handkerchief, Ann!" And as she blew her nose, she said, "Oh, what an old fool I am!"

Then, all of a sudden, it was as though a